Opening paragraphs of The Street by Ann Petry It even blew her eyelashes away from her eyes so that her eyeballs were bathed in a rush of coldness and she had to blink in order to read the words on the sign swaying back and forth over her head. She shivered as the cold fingers of the wind touched the back of her neck, explored the sides of her head. The wind lifted Lutie Johnson’s hair away from the back of her neck so that she felt suddenly naked and bald, for her hair had been resting softly and warmly against her skin.
And then the wind grabbed their hats, pried their scarves from around their necks, stuck its fingers inside their coat collars, blew their coats away from their bodies. The wind blew it back again and again until they were forced to stoop and dislodge the paper with their hands. It wrapped newspaper around their feet entangling them until the people cursed deep in their throats, stamped their feet, kicked at the paper. It found all the dirt and dust and grime on the sidewalk and lifted it up so that the dirt got into their noses, making it difficult to breathe the dust got into their eyes and blinded them and the grit stung their skins. It did everything it could to discourage the people walking along the street. It even took time to rush into doorways and areaways and find chicken bones and pork-chop bones and pushed them along the curb. Fingering its way along the curb, the wind set the bits of paper to dancing high in the air, so that a barrage of paper swirled into the faces of the people on the street. It found every scrap of paper along the street-theater throwaways, announcements of dances and lodge meetings, the heavy waxed paper that loaves of bread had been wrapped in, the thinner waxed paper that had enclosed sandwiches, old envelopes, newspapers. It rattled the tops of garbage cans, sucked window shades out through the top of opened windows and set them flapping back against the windows and it drove most of the people off the street in the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues except for a few hurried pedestrians who bent double in an effort to offer the least possible exposed surface to its violent assault. There was a cold November wind blowing through 116th Street. It is a cold November day in Harlem as Lutie Johnson, the main character, is out looking for a new apartment for herself and her young son.
The opening scene is one of my absolute favorites. It also has the distinction of being the first novel by an African American woman to sell over a million copies. It quickly sold over a million copies and catapulted Petry’s career. The Street by Ann Petry was published in 1946.
(Image courtesy of Elizabeth Petry) Source: LOA.org
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